We're Going Down!
by CrimsonSuspense
Summary: In which Charlotte tells us of her past. Here, while living on the streets, she meets someone who tells her they can offer her a life of freedom and rebellion - well, who'd say no!
1. Chapter 1

_AN:__ I'm assuming here that dollars would be used throughout the world, to make things easier. Hope this explains the use of dollars in London. And honest, I'm not racist. All people are equal. But, Charlotte's parents are evil racist bastards. Go tell 'em off. And please excuse me going a little overboard on the clothing – blame Lotte. She's never seen any bohemians before, bless 'er. Please let me know if she turns Sue._

It was early in the morning. The sun had just begun to rise, coaxing birds out from under fragile wings, and into song.

I slumped against the grimy, soot – blackened wall, and sifted through the contents of my pocket, murmuring to myself as I did so. I was fairly sure that there weren't that many people who dared to come through the back streets of London, especially as there were so many reports and rumours floating around nowadays. I hid a smirk in my collar, though there was nobody watching. I, personally, had always found murder to be so coarse, such a crude crime. I much preferred the stealth of picking pockets. Nobody, you see, would suspect a small, redheaded girl, whose clothes were several sizes too big, and sometimes – well, mostly – stolen, and whose shoes were old, ratted trainers.

Not that I was dressed to impress, or anything.

I looked down at the objects in my hands. A handful of silver coins, a couple of notes, a mini calculator, and a pencil. Right - time to start the day.

I walked along the path, turning a sharp left, which led me into the main street. I got looks of course, because what true Gaga is used to this? The vision of an underfed, poorly clothed teenager, scraping a living on citizens' loose change, and stolen bank notes. No-one, that's who.

I strolled into a newsagent, casually glancing around for anybody who looked like they could be otherwise easily distracted. For some odd reason, people notice more when you're self-conscious, so I shook out my hair a little, and grinned at a boy who looked vaguely my age. Smoothing out my grubby jumper, (striped, 'borrowed', while the children played in the park on a hot summer's day) I stepped into the queue. The woman in front of me didn't seem to notice. Nor did she notice as my hand slipped into her pocked, and pulled out a twenty.

Nice. More than I was hoping for, at least.

I frowned, and patted my pockets anxiously as though I'd just lost something, pushing the twenty dollars into my pocket as I did so. The woman I'd just nicked the money from looked at me, concerned.

"Are you alright, dear?"

I looked up into her face. She looked sweet, the sort of kind person a kid would look for if they were lost, or had forgotten their bus passes,

But I'm not a kid.

I grinned bashfully.

"I was meant to get the paper for my dad… I must've lost the money. I'd better go home, tell him there weren't any left."

"Well, are you sure? Oh – wait, dear, I'm sure I could pay for you, you wouldn't want him to get angry or anything, would you?"

Now, let me get a fact straight here. Yes, I steal, and yes, I do it when sometimes I really could live without it. But I do, believe it or not, have a heart, so I decided twenty was more than enough to take from her.

I put on my best shocked face.

"My daddy, angry? No, he'll understand completely. But thank you very much, that was very kind of you to offer."

And with my pathetic excuse still ringing in my ears, I turned, and fled the shop.

After a few days of living in the streets, especially after having lived in a really coddled Gaga family all your life, you realise just how well off you were, and you start to really regret running away. Or getting kicked out. Or whatever.

Then, after another few days, once you actually start to look homeless, with the ratted hair, and the grubby clothes, and everything, people start to notice you more. You sit on a street corner for a few hours, holding paper cup of coffee from a cheap stall, and a few people will come up to you – not close enough to look as if they actually care, but just enough so that they can judge whether you have any money or family. And they'll usually give you a coin or two – usually around 10, 20 cents maybe. And that doesn't seem much, but after five or so people come up to you with twenty cents, you can get another coffee. Ten people, and you can get a bus somewhere.

And again, I don't do this for fun. If you want the full, brutal honesty of this whole thing, I do it because I have no money, nobody that cares about me, and no food to speak of. If I didn't do it, I'd die.

And to be honest, no thanks.

So I'd been sitting on my little street corner, feeling a bit miserable because sometimes faking it can be difficult, and I'm no actress, these couple of people came up to me. There's a boy, and a girl. The girl looks familiar somehow – though I'm buggered if I know her from somewhere. Memory like a goddamn goldfish, that's me. The boy seems to be frustrated, he's walking a couple of paces in front of the girl, and she's shouting something, having to run to keep up with him. As they get closer, I notice something odd.

The guy's black.

I know what you're thinking. And I'm not a racist. Honest. My parents were, totally. I never got it, but there we go. It's just, the fact that he's black, and he has a little blonde chick following him, _that's_ interesting. In my primary school, there were quite a few black children. And I was really good friends with them – in fact, a girl called Renita was my best friend. And I wanted to go round her house, so I asked my mum, and I went round after school.

But, hell, the scene she made when she had to come pick me up – it was probably the most embarrassing day of my life. Needless to say, I changed school, and I never saw her again.

Anyway, so I haven't seen anything like that before, so it threw me a little bit. But they came nearer, and I stood up, trying to get a better look. Their clothes and hair were unlike anything I'd seen, ever. Well, the girl's was, the guy was kinda bald. But their clothes – they were absolutely amazing. The guy was wearing what looked quite like a kilt, except instead of tartan it was a black material, covered with writing, and a couple pictures, which looked hand painted. The girl – wow. Just, wow.

Her hair was like an explosion in a cute hair factory. It was all dreadlocked, with loads of little ribbons, and bits of junk. Her makeup was quite strong as well. I noticed her eyes, mainly. Outlines with massive rings of black. The guy stopped at the coffee stall I was standing next to, and ordered two.

Then he stopped, and looked behind him. The blonde was leaning against the wall across the street, quite obviously sulking.

The man swore, and handed the coffee stall owner several coins. He grabbed both the coffees, looked around, and grinned when he saw me.

"Sorry about this, but can you hold one of these a sec? My girlfriend's sulking, and she'll come over if it looks like I'm talking to you."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Do I get to drink it?"

He rolled his eyes, but grinned again. I liked this guy, he had a nice smile. And nice teeth. Which you could see when he was smiling. Nicely. Ah well, he has a girlfriend.

She's pretty hot too.

"What's your name then, red?"

I scowled. "I was about to ask you the same thing. Stop taking the piss out of the hair and maybe I'll tell you."

"He held out a hand. "Brit."

I nodded, sipping the scalding tea-flavoured liquid. "This is meant to be coffee? But whatever. I'm Charlotte. Unusual name."

"Charlotte?" he frowned, and I laughed.

"No, fool. Brit."

He shrugged, "I guess. I chose it. Considering my parents kicked me out, I figured I got to change it."

I narrowed my eyes. How old was he? "Me too. Where you guys staying? Cos I haven't got anywhere, so I know this is really pushy, but-"

"You whore!" The blonde had returned, as predicted by my new friend. And suddenly I'm not too sure why I thought she was hot. She's got to be a year or two younger than me, but you couldn't tell it to look. I'm sixteen, but I look about fourteen. I'd guess she's about fifteen or so.

"Oi, bitch, ah' was talkin'!"

I frowned again, trying to place her accent. She clearly didn't like me doing this, because she grabbed my shoulders, and pushed me back a few steps.

Brit stepped forward, trying to handle the situation. "Meat, babes, chill. Charlotte, Meat. Meat, Charlotte." She lets go of me, and launches herself at him instead. I step backward, worrying that she'll hit him, but she buried her head in the crook of his neck, and her body began to shake slightly. She was crying.

Brit was stroking her back with one hand, and beckoning me loser with his other hand. He tossed his coffee in the bin on the corner of the street, and held her properly, until she slowed down a little, and she seemed to be able to form sentences.

"Ah' wanna go home!" She cried, muffled in his neck. He sighed. "So do I, Babes. Look, all we need to do is find our way back, and then it'll be okay, yeah?"

To me, he grinned.

"Yeah. You can come with us. It'll maybe take a couple days to get there, though, okay? Reckon you can handle that?"

I couldn't quite believe my luck. "I can live with you guys?"

"Sure. Nice gang of us, call ourselves the bohemians."

I nibble my lip.

"Yeah, but where are we actually going?" my nervousness must have been apparent, for Meat slung an arm round my shoulders and grinned infectiously at me.

"Sugar – we're going _down_."

It was the first sensible thing I'd heard that morning, so I nodded.

"Sounds good. Let's go."


	2. Chapter 2

These people were _mental. _It had been only an hour or so since I'd first met them – at a guess, I didn't have a watch or anything, obviously – and already I'd been told more about Meat's sex life than I had ever even wondered, and some things I was sure couldn't be physically possible. And they _did. Not. Stop. Talking._

Brit was much less talkative than Meat, but he had just the same amount of energy. The energy that all the bohemians I'd ever seen (a paltry few, but they all had it) possessed. It was difficult to describe, but made them so much more different from the Gagas than just their clothing or hair did. Of course, if you shoved Meat or Brit next to your average Gaga clone, they're going to look about as similar as … well, as two things that look really different. But it's not just their material appearance, it's their _being_. That sounds really stupid, I know. But it's the way they bounce on every step, their constant energy and flair - looks bloody exhausting, if you ask me - their eyes gleaming as they're describing things they love that they want me to know about. They seem to want me to know every single little scrap of knowledge they can put together about bohemia, and I don't think there's any way I could have stopped them – if I'd wanted to, which of course I didn't.

It was definitely one of the most surreal days of my life. I had only the cash I'd picked up earlier, and I was pretty sure that neither of them had any money at all – yet when Meat started to complain she was hungry, we stopped at a café, and Brit went in, coming out of the door several minutes later with a cheeky grin, three coffees (much better tasting this time, thank god) and three sandwiches. I decided not to ask, and mumbled a 'thanks' between huge bites of ham and tomato.

We had nearly crossed the district by the time night was beginning to fall, nearing the edge of the city, and it was getting cold quickly. I'd pulled on my sweater a while ago, but it was getting too cold for even that to be of much help now. It was September, so I wasn't expecting it to be pleasantly warm, but I wasn't expecting it to be this cold. When I'd curled up in an old bus shelter the night before, it hadn't been warm, but it hadn't been this cold. I looked at Brit curiously, and he grimaced, answering my unasked question as if he'd been reading my mind.

"The city's mainly heated by the underground mechanics that keep all the Gagas connected to Globalsoft's virtual mainframe."

I couldn't help but hide a smile at the polished upper-class voice he put on to describe the inner workings of the city. It was a world no one person in the city would admit they'd want to see – all that dirt and grime, imagine! – but to me, it sounded amazing – an entire city, built on a computer. I mean, yeah, computers are the main workings of every civilisation nowadays (apart from the Bohemians, of course), but nobody ever really thinks about them as something we need, just something that's there when we're born, and doesn't stop when we die – even when the entire population dies, the city's innermost computer keeps going.

Thinking about this distracted me a little. Actually, it distracted me a lot. So much, in fact, that I tuned out completely, and Brit's voice faded out gradually, until I felt a dig in my ribs, and turned to see Meat smirking a little.

"He does that to everyone." She whispered, loudly enough for him to hear. He turned, and frowned jokingly at me. "You ignoring me, Red?"

The effort to argue fluttered for a second on my tongue, but I swallowed and it was gone.

"Shuttup." I muttered feebly, and turned to Meat. "He does what to what?"

She giggled, tossing her hair extravagantly, and I winced as a dreadlock hit me in the face.

"Tosser." Brit joked, apparently out of habit. She swatted at him playfully – though I think her hand went too close to his arse for it to have been accidental – and turned back to me.

"Sorry. Yeah, he flirts with everyone."

I shake my head. "No, he wasn't –" But Meat ignored me, and carried on talking as if I hadn't tried to deny that her boyfriend (or I presumed he was) had been flirting with me. "He's like that with everyone, seriously. Like, you remember I told you about that time me and Brit and Prince and Seal got really drunk, and we-"

Oh god. Here we go again.

It's another hour before we reach the very edge of the city. I'm shivering, and Meat's been complaining for at least 20 minutes. Solid.

"-and we passed that bloody train station half a bloody hour ago, couldn't we have stayed there? It's god-fuckin'-_damned_ cold, and I wanna go to sleep!"

Finally.

Brit looks up at her, and seems to weigh up in his mind how much more annoying she'll get if he doesn't cave in. Personally, I don't think she could get any worse, but that's before she finds a burst of energy from somewhere (this is no mean feat, we've been walking for what feels like days) but she jumps in front of him and doesn't move.

"Are we gonna stop soon? Cause we're fucking tired, and you don't even seem to know where we're going! For Christ's sake, we went to get food, and now we're lost, and we have no idea – we're never gonna get home!" He voice begins as a shout, and crescendos to a shriek. He leans sideways slightly, but she grabs his shoulders, and glares at him. I hadn't seen such a hateful expression from her before, and I wouldn't have thought it possible of her. She could do bitchy and whiny, but I sure as hell hadn't seen the worst, it seemed. They stood like that for about a minute, and I began to think they were having a staring competition, until Meat broke the eye contact, and looked down at the ground. Brit looks at her, and I'm surprised to see the anger is his eyes fade away as Meat leans her forehead against his chest.

"I'm sorry."

"I know." He kisses the top of her head, and brushes a tear off her cheek. "If you can manage a minute or so more, we'll get to a cover. I know some of the tunnels were lost, but if we get to…" His nose wrinkles up, and he looks around slightly helplessly. "Umm… the station with the doors – you know, the one with the escalators…"

Jesus Christ. I look around, and notice a few familiar landmarks.

"Well," I tell him, and I'm really trying not to be patronising. Honest. "We're at Piccadilly Circus now."

"Yeah? And you know that because…" He raises an eyebrow, and, yeah, screw the semi-politeness.

"Because there's a large sign on the wall that says Piccadilly in large letters." I inform him, and Meat laughs.

"She's got ya there, babe. So, you, how do we get to Tottenham Court from here?" The second bit is directed at me, and accompanied by a light hand on my shoulder, and I shiver slightly.

… Hey, it's cold.

"You go along to Leicester Square, and then change across to Northern, and follow to Tottenham." She raises an eyebrow, and I sigh, and point. "You go that way."

She grabs me in a hug, and then grabs one of mine and Brit's hands in each of hers, and stars to run.

"Sounds perfect. Let's rock and ROLL!"

Yeah. Whatever _that's _supposed to mean.


End file.
